hI! a few happier chapters- remember to leave me votes and comments!!:)
November's POV
"Nove." Cole is gently trying to wake me.
But I honestly just want to sleep.
"No."
"November." He laughs, his legs tangled with mine as we dozed in his bed.
It must have been later that evening, I didn't realise we had fallen asleep.
I slowly turned around and he opened his arms for me to press my face into his chest, just like I always do. I can always feel as his heartbeat picks up when I do, when I am this close.
"We should go back to the flat."
"But your bed is so comfy." I whisper and my lips are brought to his quickly.
I knew I had to go and take my medication. I wasn't stupid. I just felt really good, safe right here, right now.
I was scared to check my phone.
"Come on. You need to eat and shit." He says and I look up at him.
Coleton is looking down at me and I know he is concerned. He thinks I am spiralling, I am sure of it. But I feel okay.
I was doing everything I needed to do to be okay.
Which included not seeing Yuen. I would deal with the consequences of that. He wouldn't find Dylan and if he did, my dad was there to pay the debt.
"Okay, are you coming home with me? You don't have to. I am gunna be painting this evening but I just-"
"I'll come. I might as well. Better to be sat in your room watching Netflix and watching you do your thing than being here alone." Cole says and I lean my face up and press my nose against his.
"I am sorry I forced you to tell me you loved me." I breath and then a small laugh escapes me, I was utterly chaotic sometimes. "I know it was super weird seeing as I hate when you tell me your feelings."
He pulls back and sits up a little. "November are you going to tell me what is going on with you?"
"A bad day." I say. "A bad couple of days. I um, I am going to have to be distant from you over the next week-"
"No." He says immediately.
"No like, I don't want to. But I need to do a routine and eat well and sleep early and make sure I create stability."
"Nova I can do those things with you."
Oh.
I sit up too, pulling the covers to cover my chest and we turn to face eachother.
"I need to go home have a healthy dinner, paint to calm my head, take my medication and go to bed. Then I need to wake up in the morning at nine, do some yoga, take my vitamins, have breakfast. Go and see my friends for lunch or something, paint, listen to music, dinner, then again relax, bath, medication, sleep."
"Yes Nove okay, we can do that." He says and I just frown at him.
"Isn't that boring for you though?"
"No."
"Cole-" I sigh and he just outstretches his hands to cup my cheeks.
"November I meant what I said. You didn't force it out of me, you gave me an opportunity to say it where I knew you wouldn't run away. I love you."
Oh god.
Hearing it from him seems so different.
"Why are you telling me? Like, I, what did you do?"
"Huh?" He says, confused and I just rub my forhead confused too.
"What did you do wrong? What do you want? Why are you saying it?"
He looks at me and then he nods. As if he understood how my broken brain was working.
"If I tell you I love you it will never be for anything other than the fact this burning in my chest has shot out through my lips. I love you Nove. There's no ulterior motives with me. I promise you."
Oh god.
I feel nauseous, I feel as if the butterflies in my stomach are fighting eachother with little sparks of electricity. You ever read The Power? Where women have evolved to shoot electricity through their finger tips? My butterflies have evolved too.
"You want to do my routine with me?" I ask and he nods.
"I just want to be there, I want to know you are okay. I want to do yoga with you because you trying to do all those bendy poses will be hilarious and really freaking sexy."
"You love me?" I ask, my voice quiet and he just laughs.
His hands slide down to my chin and he pulls my face towards him so he can press his lips to my forehead.
"More than you will ever know."
God.
Am I supposed to make him stop?
What do I do?
"I feel like you shouldn't." I say honestly and he moves out the bed.
"I feel that way too sometimes. But it doesn't stop."
"You love me but you don't want to?" I ask and he looks at me, our eyes connecting when he pulls up some sweat pants.
"I do want to love you. I like the feeling I get when I look at you Novemebr. I just sometimes feel I love you a dangerous amount. That I shouldn't love you as much as I do when you do not love me back."
I look down immediately.
"Sorry."
"i didn't say that to make you feel back. A couple of days ago you said is it enough? And I am saying yes. Yes what we have is enough for me."
"Enough." I whisper.
I have never been enough for anyone.
I just watch him as he moves around his room getting a bag together.
"How long do you wanna do this little routine for?" He asks and I lie back down watching him.
"Like until Saturday? Then we can go out with everyone, have a late night and stuff?"
"Okay." He answers and get starts to pack for them days.
"Cole you don't have to stay-"
"I want to, will you let me?"
"Yeah." I breath and he sends me a small smile and starts grabbing his important things like the laptop, his chargers, his phone.
"How was your coffee date?" I ask and he sends me a confused look.
"Coffee date?"
"Logan."
"Oh. Fine. But he is getting back involved with the Vix's so we aren't necessarily going to be friends."
"Oh."
"You want me to bring anything else?"
"Running shoes." I say and he laughs.
"Nova you can't run."
The audacity.
"Yes I can."
"Okay , okay. Fine we will go for a run."
I nod. I can do this.
"Get up then beautiful, I am ready and you're still in bed."
Beautiful.
"Why do you call me all these names?" I ask and slowly get up, looking around for my clothes.
"What?" He asks and I just shrug.
"Like love or-"
"Because for a long time you have been an embodiment of love for me. When I met you, I looked at you and that is what I felt. Not necessarily for you, I am not saying I was in love with you from the beginning Nova I am just saying as soon as we met I knew where this was going."
I just stare at him, a little frozen.
"I bet you say that to all the girls..." I whisper and he turns around and gives me such a fucking annoyed look that it makes a bubble of laugher fall between my lips.
Then he just rolls his eyes and when I laugh again his lips twitch upwards.
"I didn't mean love specifically. I meant the other names."
"I just do. They fall out my mouth. I guess because you have always glared at me when I call you stunning or tell you how great you are, but when I call you baby or love or whatever else I call you, you just smile a little and don't tell me off."
I nod and he tosses me my leggings I came in.
"Get dressed, it's 8 and you need to eat and settle for the night yeah?"
I smile at him.
"Yeah."
"Cool. Come on then."
...
It wasn't long before I was sat happily using the easel Cole got for me and putting to use the brilliant organisation skills of Rosie Posie.
She is the one that organised all my art things, of course.
We had eaten, I had showered and was now in pyjamas snuggled with Cole's hoodie on me, painting the scene that I had captured on my phone but needed to recreate in it's total beauty.
It was heading towards eleven and Cole was in my bed, snacking because my healthy meal definetly did not fill the poor boy up and watching Shameless with his earphones in.
I was getting tired, but for right now I was utterly relaxed, just slowly doing this painting and feeling the safe presence in the room.
My phone kept going off earlier.
I hadn't looked at it.
I didn't need to get freaked out.
I just needed to do this, have these mental health days and then I would face the shit with Yuen.
"Nove." Cole says and I startle, looking around at him in annoyance because what the hell man.
"Sorry." He laughs and looks up at my painting. "What are you painting?"
"You tell me." I laugh and turn around and he gets out of bed, walking towards my corner.
"It looks like the lake."
"Not the Avery one." He says and I nod slowly, leaning into him when his chest is pressed against my back.
"The one where we swam."
"Yeah." I say and he places his chin on my shoulder.
"You are fucking good at this yanoe?"
"I try." I laugh and look at the scene I was creating. It has the sky and the moon bright above the lake, the water dark, all of it dark, apart from the back of Coleton's head and his shoulders as they poke out the water and are being illuminated by the moon light, the crystal white beams reflecting of him.
I hadn't even started him properly. Like his skin or his hair or his tattoos. But he was penciled there so it was easy to build the background around him.
"You are painting me."
I turn around and look at him.
"Of course I am."
"Why?"
"Because you are art remember?" I say and he just laughs, his forehead coming down on mine and I sigh sleepily into our proximity.
"What's the plan for tomorrow?" He asks and I turn back around and continue to sweep the black filled paintbrush around the bottom of the canvas.
"Get up at 9, I am gunna get breakfast and do some yoga/meditation and then get dressed and go and see Tristan."
"You are seeing Tristan again?" Cole asks and I hum a yes.
"I am doing this properly this time. I don't know if I am falling into an episode. I don't think so. But just incase I am going to see Tristan, I am doing my routine, I am letting him set up plans just in case."
"Nove, I am proud of you." Cole says and I look up at him a little surprised.
"I know, look I know I hardly know anything. That I don't know shit about mental health necessarily, but you are working so hard and I am taken back by your strength, your determination to sort things out."
I smile a little, and lean my back against his chest as he just stands behind me watching.
I am tired.
And chilled.
"I am just gunna wash up my things and set them out for tomorrow." I tell Cole and he nods.
"What are you gunna do after Tristan?"
We walk together towards the kitchen and I lethargically wash my paint out of my paint brushed and my pallet.
"You want water?" He asks and I nod.
"I don't mind what we do after Tristans. I will be done by 11, so I would like it if I finished this painting, but also fresh air and stuff would be nice. Maybe see Rose and Sage."
"How about we go for a picnic?" He asks and I raise my eyebrows at Cole Harrington suggesting something like a picnic.
"Like no crappy foods, we can pick something up? But just me you, Sage and Rose, go and sit at Fraizer park for a few ours. You can sketch, or you can read, or listen to music. Or just talk it's fine. But we will chill, get some fresh air. Nature's supposed to be good yeah?"
I am very fucking thankful for this boy.
"I- yes. Cole..." I say and look up at him and he nods.
"I-" I don't know what to say. I want to tell him how much he means to me but I have no words that actually portray that.
"Nove it's okay." He says and I just sigh and dry my things up.
"Then we'll come back here, you can continue your painting and we can just have a chilled evening. Does that sound okay?"
"Yeah." I say and turn towards him.
I blurt.
"Colton you are everything to me too."
He freezes a little and blinks at me.
"Careful there Nove, otherwise I will start thinking you feel the same way."
I narrow my eyes at him, and his comment and turn back around grabbing my things.
I walk past him and into the bedroom, placing my things down for tomorrow and then I slowly take his jumper off.
"You want me to set an alarm or are you gunna?" He asks and I just shrug.
"You. I don't want to go on my phone." I say and he looks at me a little confused but nods.
"Ima just go lock the front door."
"Nove I locked it." He tells me and I send him a small smile.
"I need to check it."
"Okay."
When I walk back out to my front room I see my phone and cringe.
Okay just read the messages.
I grab my phone from the kitchen table and head to the door, tapping on the locks to see if they're okay.
They were fine. I was just scared.
I press my phone open and click on Dylan's messages. Not Dylan, you know who I mean.
Dylan: You remember when we went out that night, you were manic, you needed to leave the house and just run? And we ran together, we ran as far as you fucking could and then I carried you all the way back because you hurt your legs, like your legs couldn't support you? But I could, I supported you. That is when I decided I would love you forever.
I stared at his message and I hate how it hurts me.
I needed to counter the memory. To remind myself how bad it was.
There was a time when I was so low that I tried to take an overdose. Yuen found me and he started to laugh, he sat with me and he fed me them, he helped me swallow as many pills as I could and then he rammed his fingers down my throat and made me throw them all back up. Telling me that it was his choice whether I lived or died, not mine. It wasn't mine. I had no control there.
But in doing that he saved me. Like I didn't die.
God.
Dylan: Obviously I want you November, I am not going to pretend I don't want you back. But I want you to want me back. And if you don't that is ok. I just need to give you your things. To say goodbye and then I will leave you and your brother alone. I will pay Stuart for you, I will do that if you do this for me.
I cant do that. I refuse. His words, the way he comes across right now is just a front. It is the front he shows when he wants me to love him, when he wants me to forgive him. We have been here before. I forgave him for everything else.
He just wants me to forgive him for Ryan.
But I wont. Because Ryan is a symbol of what he is capable of, and it is a symbol of everything bad he can do to me.
The bad outweighs the good.
It just does.
"Nove?" Cole's voice is careful. I was stood in the middle of my front room and staring down at my phone.
Dylan: I will be at the café again tomorrow. 4PM. Be there Nove. Otherwise you know what will happen.
I lock my phone and toss it to the sofa, turning around and sending Cole a small smile.
"Sorry. Yeah. Bed." I say and walk towards him.
"Let's sleep."
"Are you tired?" I ask, Cole doesn't usually sleep until at least 2AM.
"Not really, but we'll stick something on yeah?"
"Okay." I say and he climbs back into bed. "You want me to open the window? It's paint fumey."
"I like the smell, it reminds me of you. But yeah probably."
I smile at that, my friends hate it. But I walk softly over to the window and push it open.
"Come on." He says and taps the space next to him, pulling his earphones out of the laptop and letting it play outloud.
"You don't need to know what is going on, it's just chaotic. He's supposed to be dead, they are balifs. Checking that he is."
"But he's not?" I ask as I slip in next to him.
"Nah. He's in the coffin but they just knocked him out."
"Right okay." I laugh and he lifts his arm so I snuggle into his side and place my face on his chest, looking at the laptop that is rested on his legs.
"Nova, do you hate it when I say that I love you? What do you feel?"
I just close my eyes and think.
I don't know what I feel.
"Cole, my head the last few days has been wrapped up in Yuen trauma." I say honestly for the first time. "So at the moment when you say it, I am drawing comparisons okay? And I know you don't want to hear that. I am sorry that is the case. When you tell me you love me I think why. I think what do you want. I feel scared and a little panicked, but Cole I- I want to hear it. I like it. And I know that is selfish. So I really am sorry."
"You like it?"
That is all he picked out of that.
Right okay.
"Yes. I feel good when you say it, it makes my heart burn."
"Your heart burn?"
Yeah I don't know how else to describe it.
"Yeah acid reflux." I laugh and Cole chuckles under me.
"Whatever Nove. Go to sleep."
"Well that's rude." I whisper and he huffs a little.
"You are disrupting my programme."
"You spoke first."
"Shut up." He laughs and I just move my head so I wasn't on his chest and I fall slightly so I was on his shoulder, his arm.
I close my eyes because I couldn't care less about his TV show, but the background noise was good and comforting.
Tomorrow I would message Yuen back, tell him no and then block Dylan's number.
And hopefully that'll be enough.
That will sort it.
What do ya think's gunna happen??